CHARACTER comics have always found a ready audience, as Londoner Harry Denford has found. But Harry, who plays The Buzz in Chorlton on Thursday, doesn't play a character with an assumed name and an assumed role in life; the character he portrays is a version of himself, but one as seen through the eyes of others.

His working life kicked off when he began training as a police officer, only to discover he suffered from vertigo, a condition that prevented him completing the training.

"They paid for me to go on a course to cure it," he remembers. "At the end of it I had to prove I was no longer a sufferer so I could go back in, and one of the things I had to do was have a flying lesson in an open-top biplane. But I liked it so much I decided to train for my Private Pilot's Licence (PPL) instead."

So the plans on becoming a bobby were shelved. He duly qualified for his PPL, and he eventually flew holidaymakers to the sun on 134-seater Boeing 737s as the first officer. He says that any impression of glamour in being an airline pilot is misplaced.

"When you get to that level it can be quite a boring job," he says. "You're really a glorified computer programmer because so much of the job is automated."

Wide boy

His career as a commercial pilot is long behind him, but it did give him the inspiration for his comedy character, an East End hard-case and wide-boy.

"I'm from a South London working class background. My dad was a council gardener, my mum ran the local kids' playground, and when I was at flying school a lot of the people on the course, some of whom were ex-RAF, kept making fun of me, saying that I'd put go-faster stripes on my plane, that sort of thing."

These days, he keeps his hand in with part-ownership of a four-seater Cessna. He even uses it to fly to gigs from time to time.

"If I'm doing three nights in Nottingham, for example, it's cheaper and quicker for me to fly up from London and park the plane at the airfield, rather than drive up the motorway."

However, he says that isn't the case when he gigs here in Manchester. "The landing fees at Manchester Airport are too expensive," says Harry, who appeared on Channel 4's The Real Holiday Show last year flying around the more remote Scottish islands.

Harry, 33, a full-time stand-up for five years, says that despite the fact that the comedy circuit is heavily centred on London - one of the main reasons many regional comics feel the need to move to the capital - it is not necessarily an advantage to actually come from London.

"It is an advantage if you're new to comedy," he suggests, "but I would say in London there's only about half-a-dozen professional comedy clubs. People think there's lot of clubs in London, but if you actually go to them, they're invariably a small room above a pub attended by eight people watching a succession of open spots. That's great if you're an open spot because you can go out gigging every night of the week, but it's not if you're an established comedian. There's an over-concentration of clubs in London."

Harry Denford is at the Buzz on Thursday, January 30. Admission is é6.